Sunday, April 10, 2016

Exhaust Lift - Floor Cut

Earlier in the week I made a start on cutting out the floor to allow me to lift the exhaust into the footwell.

Unfortunately I burned myself quite badly when a peice of rather hot steel flew off the car and landed on my arm while I was mid-cut. Because it landed on the arm holding the grinder I couldn't flick it off until the grinder stopped, so I called it quits after checking on my wound.

Tonight I got stuck back in more seriously.

Because I don't want to piss off the neighbours too much (one of them is our landlord until we build our house!!) I limited myself to about half an hour with the grinder (obviously not grinding flat out for that time). One cutting disc later and here's the cut out. I've deliberately gone much further than I needed to so I've got more room to move while lifting the exhaust, and also so I can do a better job of finishing the metalwork at the end (because I don't want to keep the patchwork quilt effect I've started with the transmission tunnel going through the whole project!!)

This might explain why the car sounds like it's got an exhaust leak... guess that's what I deserve for using second hand flanges! Need to get another one or two and lop these off as part of the lift.

My plan of attack here is to put multiple cuts in the extractor down pipes (the two at the top) on the underside, then spread them evenly to minimise the amount of gap I have to fill with the welder. I could cut at the top (and have a better time welding it back together!) but that would cause the overall diameter of the pipe to become smaller; not the desired effect! I will likely need to cut at the top to adjust for the angle in the same way (it'll start to aim up once I begin to bend it up to the higher position)

At the other end, I've cut a portion of the gearbox mount away. This is still far beefier than the standard falcon gearbox mount location despite being thinned down by removal of this piece. I'm unsure if I'll bother capping the section I've cut off - it's not really thin enough steel to worry about it rusting away in a hurry.